Michigan-Based National Research and Education Computer Network Establishes International Link

Michigan-Based National Research and Education Computer Network Establishes International Link

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 15,1990 -- PRNewswire -- Partners in the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) today announced the establishment of a new high-speed data communications link between the United States and Europe.

For the first time, researchers will have high-speed access to distant supercomputers and other high-technology information resources on both sides of the Atlantic.

The NSFNET is the nation's largest research and education computer network. It is managed and operated by the Merit Computer Network in Ann Arbor. Merit, which is the longest-running regional network in the country, is a consortium of Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University, Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University, Oakland University, the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Western Michigan University. The State of Michigan's Strategic Fund also provides financial support for the project.

The NSFNET partnership -- the National Science Foundation, the Merit Computer Network, IBM Corporation, MCI Communications Corporation, and the State of Michigan -- made the U.S. announcement of the new link at the National Net '90 networking conference in Washington, D.C.

Merit and the State of Michigan have played a key role in the development and operation of the NSFNET. The project is credited with positioning Michigan at the vanguard of national computer networking and advancing the state's efforts to become a center for high technology. Michigan Gov. James J. Blanchard cites the state's participation as an excellent example of cooperation between government, higher education and the private sector to help regain America's competitive edge in world markets.

"Michigan is providing significant support and expertise to the cutting-edge work of the NSFNET partnership," said Blanchard. "This new link will bring the accomplishments of our state as a center of high technology, particularly in the area of high-speed computer networking, into sharp focus for the world's research community."

IBM, with support from MCI, is sponsoring the new trans-Atlantic service that will enable NSFNET to provide the largest and fastest data communications pipeline connecting researchers and educators on both continents. This new connection will speed the exchange of information in such critical areas as studying global change, mapping the human gene, analyzing particle physics, exploring space and predicting weather.

"NSFNET links more than 1,000 university, business and government research networks and provides access to several supercomputer centers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)," said Eric M. Aupperle, president of Merit. "The State of Michigan and the NSFNET partnership are enthusiastically committed to providing researchers worldwide with immediate access to the high-technology equipment they need to do their work."

Using this new link, researchers will be able to exchange information at a rate equivalent to transmitting 50 single-spaced typed pages a second. U.S. and European researchers will be able to collaborate on projects more effectively than ever before. They will be able, for example, to share research data at rapid speeds and to see the same graphic images and text almost simultaneously.

"Access to these kinds of resources, especially at higher speeds, will make it possible for researchers here and in Europe to share technology, information, and expertise in new and important ways," said Stephen S. Wolff, a division director at the National Science Foundation. "It is clear that this kind of collaboration has the potential to speed up the research process and lead us to new scientific breakthroughs that today we cannot even imagine."

Through the NSFNET, U.S. researchers can collaborate though they may work thousands of miles apart. The national computer network links more than 1,000 university, business and government research networks and provides access to supercomputer centers funded by the National Science Foundation.

IBM provides the NSFNET with hardware and software for all of the network routing, management and information services. The same IBM switching technology used in the United States will transport data packets through the European gateway and throughout several countries in western Europe.

MCI provides an international link that connects the NSFNET to the European Academic Supercomputer Initiative Network (EASInet), a partnership of IBM and 18 European academic and research institutions in nine European countries. The European gateway, which connects EASInet to the trans-Atlantic link, is at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, on the French-Swiss border near Geneva.

"This new link catapults data networking into the realm of international cooperation. It also exemplifies the commitment of the NSFNET project partnership to advance telecommunications technology to ensure that the world's research community has high-speed access to information resources no matter where they are located," said Ronald E. Spears, president of MCI's Midwest Division.

MCI's Fiberline Digital Service(sm) is provided via TAT-8, the trans-Atlantic undersea digital fiber optic cable system. The link will operate at T1 speed, the equivalent of 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps), or nearly 200,000 characters per second. This will provide faster throughput and reduced message delay time compared with existing low- speed international satellite links. To support Fiberline services on TAT-8, MCI constructed a dedicated digital facility directly connecting its network with its operations center at the Tuckerton, N.J., cablehead.

The U.S. gateway for the transatlantic link is at the Cornell National Supercomputer Facility at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The private line circuit enters the MCI Global Highway network via the MCI International Test and Maintenance Center in New York City. The center accepts the NSFNET access line and transports traffic to the New Jersey cablehead.

CONTACT: Kathleen McClatchey of Merit Computer Network, 313-936-3000; Kathleen Ryan of IBM Corporation, 914-945-2958; or Doug Dome of MCI Telecommunications Corporation, 312-938-4995

High-Speed Future Demonstrated By Nation's Largest Research and Education Computer Network

WASHINGTON, March 15, 1990 -- PRNewswire -- Transmitting data almost 30 times faster than ever before, the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) partnership today provided a glimpse into the future of high- speed computer networking.

The partners in NSFNET, the nation's largest research and education computer network, demonstrated prototype equipment that transmitted information between Washington and Ann Arbor, Mich. over a data network running at T3 speed, or about 45 megabits per second (Mbps), the equivalent of more than 5 million characters per second.

Information currently flows on the NSFNET at about 1.5 Mbps, or almost 200,000 characters per second, known as T1 speed. It is expected that the NSFNET will begin operations services at the higher speed of 45 Mbps later this year.

NSFNET is a partnership of the National Science Foundation, the Merit Computer Network, IBM Corporation, MCI Communications Corporation and the State of Michigan. Merit, IBM and MCI took over the day-to-day operation and management of the NSFNET backbone in 1987 and implemented a 24-fold increase in the bandwidth capacity over the old 56 kilobits per second (kbps) network. When the new T3 services go into effect, the network will have another 28-fold increase, representing an overall 672- fold increase in capacity over the last two and a half years while the partnership has managed the project.

Merit, IBM and MCI provided direct services and research expertise for this high-speed demonstration. IBM used several of its recently announced RISC System/6000 workstations equipped with prototype high- speed networking adapters and specially developed packet switching software to connect conference participants at National Net '90 in Washington, with the NSFNET Network Operations center at the Merit Computer Network in Ann Arbor, Mich., where Merit provides operational support. The IBM prototype network adapters interface directly with the MCI clear channel DS3 circuits connecting the two sites. The network adapters also connect two RISC System/6000 workstations together locally on a Fiber Distributed Data Interchange (FDDI) local area network operating at 100 Megabits per second.

MCI provided the high-speed fiber optic long-distance telephone circuits, with local support in Washington from Industrial Communications Corporation. MCI has had previous experience providing DS3 capability directly to supercomputer facilities, and was able to apply this expertise to engineer the circuits for this first packet- switched data transmission demonstration of its type at this high speed.

High-speed computer networking is increasingly required by researchers across the United States as new computing applications demand faster transmission technology. Applications such as distributed computing and interactive remote graphics are impractical on today's T1 networks. The demonstration illustrated the technical feasibility of operating a research network like the NSFNET at T3 speed, and showed how such a high-speed network would make it possible to effectively use new computing and information resources.

In the demonstration, for example, two workstations connected over the high-speed T3 link simulated the resources of two scientific collaborators at different locations sharing information. One application demonstrated the sharing of large image files. Another illustrated remote access and interactive analysis of an experimental data base representing high-energy particle collision measurements acquired at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, on the French-Swiss border near Geneva. Another application showed an interactive graphic visualization of molecular models synthesized on an IBM 3090 supercomputer located at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

"The prototype packet switching systems and software we have demonstrated here illustrate the new applications made possible by high- speed networks," said Michael M. Conners, director of computing systems at IBM Research. "New applications will enable scientists to steer large computations on remote supercomputers and visualize the progress of these simulations across the network in real time. A national T3 data network would improve the access to large and expensive shared scientific resources like telescopes, nuclear particle accelerators, wind-tunnels and supercomputers."

"With a T3 network, we can improve our scientific productivity in ways that are currently impossible," said Stephen S. Wolff, a division director at the National Science Foundation. "This research support is crucial to our educational system and our competitive position as an industrial nation."

"NSFNET links more than 1,000 university, business and government research networks and provides access to several supercomputer centers funded by the NSF," said Eric M. Aupperle, president of Merit. "The NSFNET partnership is committed to providing researchers at these institutions with the immediate access to high technology equipment they need to do their work."

"This is the cutting edge of data networking, especially on a national scale. This demonstration exemplifies the commitment of the NSFNET project partnership to push telecommunications technology to ensure that our research community has high-speed access to information resources across the country and around the world," said Lawrence J. Bouman, senior vice president, program management and systems planning for MCI.

/NOTE: RISC System/6000 is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation./

CONTACT: Kathleen Ryan of IBM Corporation, 914-945-2958; Kathleen McClatchey of Merit Computer Network, 313-936-3000; or Doug Dome of MCI Communications Corporation, 312-938-4995/

Nation's Largest Research and Education Computer Network Establishes International Link

WASHINGTON, March 15, 1990 -- PRNewswire -- Partners in the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) today announced the establishment of a new high-speed data communications link between the United States and Europe.

For the first time, researchers will have high-speed access to distant supercomputers and other high-technology information resources on both sides of the Atlantic.

The NSFNET is the nation's largest research and education computer network. The NSFNET partnership -- the National Science Foundation, the Merit Computer Network, IBM Corporation, MCI Communications Corporation and the state of Michigan -- made the U.S. announcement of the new link at the National Net '90 networking conference in Washington.

Access to these kinds of resources, especially at higher speeds, will make it possible for researchers here and in Europe to share technology, information and expertise in new and important ways," said Stephen S. Wolff, a division director at the National Science Foundation. "It is clear that this kind of collaboration has the potential to speed up the research process and lead us to new scientific breakthroughs that today we cannot even imagine."

Through the NSFNET, U.S. researchers can collaborate though they may work thousands of miles apart. The NSFNET is a national computer network that links more than 1,000 university, business and government research networks and provides access to supercomputer centers funded by the National Science Foundation. The NSFNET is managed and operated by the Merit Computer Network in Ann Arbor, Mich. Merit is a consortium of eight Michigan universities and is the longest-running regional network in the country. The state of Michigan provides additional financial support.

MCI's Fiberline Digital Service is provided via TAT-8, the trans-Atlantic undersea digital fiber optic cable system. The link will operate at T1 speed, the equivalent of 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps), or nearly 200,000 characters per second. This will provide faster throughput and reduced message delay time compared with existing low-speed international satellite links. To support Fiberline services on TAT-8, MCI constructed a dedicated digital facility directly connecting its network with its operations center at the Tuckerton, N.J., cablehead.

The U.S. gateway for the trans-Atlantic link is at the Cornell National Supercomputer Facility at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The private line circuit enters the MCI Global Highway network via the MCI International Test and Maintenance Center in New York City. The center accepts the NSFNET access line and transports traffic to the N.J. cablehead.

/NOTE: MCI's Fiberline Digital Service is a service mark./

CONTACT: Kathleen Ryan of IBM Corporation, 914-945-2958; Kathleen McClatchey of Merit Computer Network, 313-936-3000; or Doug Dome of MCI Communications Corporation, 312-938-4995/